In Episode 71 of the Influence Factory, I had the opporunity to sit down with my close friend and business partner, Ben Zoldan co-founder and CEO of Storyleaders.I welcome you to a discussion with us about “All-In” culture and what it means to see opportunity in fear, and more importantly what impact does it have in your organization, people and even our world.

 

 

The first area we focus on here is the idea of being present. If you are constantly looking towards the next thing, you are not allowing yourself to live in the experience of now. Constantly looking for the next thing trains your brain to do this even when you don’t intentionally mean to. This can, over time, hinder relationships in the sense of work as well as family.

 

When you grow up learning certain defense mechanisms, they become ingrained in your behavior for the rest of your life. It is up to you to unlearn these techniques to make room for growth. An interaction I had changed the way I looked at fear and how it affected my professional growth.

 

 

“Your problem is that you see fear as the enemy. When fear comes up, you need to see that as an opportunity, embrace it full-on, and go at it– whatever that fear maybe.” By doing this, you are opening the door to opportunities you would have never dreamed of. Nothing is out of your reach when you realize this. Ben points out that we are not fearless by nature; the closest we come to being fearless is when we effectively learn how to manage our fear and turn it into opportunity. At that point, we can cross the boundaries of fearlessness.

 

 

Ben goes on to discuss questions that were sparked within him when he went up to a man to thank him for his work, and he replies with, “Hey man I’m just doing my part.” It makes you wonder why some people are all-in, and others are not. A successful operation is made when all members are in for the good of the project rather than the material, monetary, and selfish reasons. The root of the problem comes from, in Ben’s eyes, “Corporate environments we set up that are operating from a playbook that fails to celebrate the most intrinsic things that govern our souls. This includes being stimulated, being a part of something greater, or working for something truly important to them. People don’t go “All-In” because of the out of date paradigms corporations have set up.”

 

 

For Ben, it was starting Storyleaders and diving into something that he was completely invested in. His passion, his drive, and his motives were “All-In” when it came to this project. He stated that maybe even if he wasn't the absolute best at it, it was about overcoming the fear and putting yourself in a position where you are truly passionate about the job you are doing.

 

When you can effectively communicate your story to your team and open the door to a vulnerable state, it creates a sense of community, understanding, and most importantly, humanization. With an open atmosphere, there is a greater potential for the team to have accountability and drive, due to viewing each other more as fellow humans with the same goals, rather than just coworkers.

 

 

“By and large, I felt like I knew what I was getting into. I couldn’t have been more wrong…This is an experience that has forever changed how I view the world” – Barry Sowerwine, SVP Enterprise Sales, Tableau

 

 

Ben discusses the idea that the reason people act the way they do is because of the broken systems we are designing. If the office culture had always been “All-In” then we wouldn't have to go back and fix it. The thing that gives people purpose and meaning is a connection. You have to find connections with others to truly feel attached to the work.

 

One of our core human interests is to contribute. We are here to work together to create something greater. Ben mentions that what gives us the ability to work together in large numbers is the ability to empathize and have each other's backs. This does not necessarily make us unique, for wild animals also do this. What does make us unique, however, is that we can pick things up and imagine things that do not yet exist. Businesses fail to recognize, in most cases, that this is what makes us so inimitable. They do not foster creativity and fail to remember what it is like to be human.

 

 

On a sports team, there is a sense of looking out for one another. The defense must work with the offense to reach its goal. This is the mentality that should be carried into the office. To listen to this episode with @BenZoldan go to: https://app.socialjack.com/resource-items/ep-71-ben-zoldan-going-all-in-influence-factory/

 

 


A key part of many social media campaigns in today’s day and age is the power of Influencer Marketing. This form of marketing allows people to reach into their wells of power (AKA their network) and help sway opinion about a product or service that people should buy. What makes this interesting is that people are able to have more personal interactions with their audience members instead of doing a generic post. In order to use Influencer Marketing to its fullest potential, there are a few tips you should keep in mind.

In this episode, Neal Schaffer shares what he loves about Influencer Marketing. He explains the power it has and why so many people are jumping headfirst into it.

Make content, not war

Obviously, creating content is a key part of Influencer Marketing. You want to keep your network engaged with you by posting relevant, timely content; but, how do you present it to them? One way is a blog post. After all, a blog post allows you to be more personal and humanize whatever you talk about. However, there are various other effective ways that you can present content to your audience.

The other route you can take here is by developing visual content for your audience. You still need text for your social media post, but a visual can augment what you say very well! If you want to show off a product’s effectiveness, you can create a video to demonstrate it. Want to make a statistic really stand out? You can make a chart or an infographic to visualize the data! A photo can also help give some more ompf to your posts! Remember, you should make a post fun by doing something creative with what you offer or what people should know about. Make your content both clickable and engaging.

Influencer Pro Marketing Tip: Are you looking for ways to enhance your social media posts? Our Influencer Development Program will help you identify your target audience and then we can help you develop content that is both relevant and engaging!

Be an advocate of your work

Obviously, everyone wants to get invested in work that is meaningful to them. When that happens, employees tend to be very happy about where they work and essentially become an “ambassador” to their company and its brand. This is something that Schaffer called “employee advocacy.” The term essentially means that employees are representatives of the brand and can talk about in a positive light. This is something to leverage for your next Influencer Marketing campaign. If employees have a lot of followers, they can talk about their company. In doing this, they can get others to jump on board with the brand and use the services it sells. This goes to show how important employees can be online!

Influencer Marketing Pro Tip: If you are looking to sell a service on social media, look at your brand and the company’s brand. By seeing how you fit into the brand or why the brand matters to you, you can offer that personalized communication with customers. Customers like to see personality coming from a company because it once again HUMANIZES the brand. This will help you make those sales!

Employee Advocacy – LinkedIn

As the second most engaged social media network, LinkedIn is a great tool for employee advocacy. LinkedIn is a professional social media channel, so it makes sense to use employee advocacy here. On this channel, you are representing yourself, but also a company. In order to convince people to use any of your company’s services, you should show them why the company is great! Maybe your company is pushing a new environmental project or something that helps employees… talk about it! When people see your words, they can get a better idea of what your company’s values are and why they should get involved with them. This is the ideal channel to enhance the awareness and brand of a company while getting connected with other industry experts.

Influencer Marketing Pro Tip: Do you want to use employee advocacy on LinkedIn but don’t have an account or are lacking connections? Social Jack’s Influencer Development Program can help you build your profile and network so you can chat your company up!

In summary

Influencer Marketing is great because it allows you to get personal with your audience. You can do this by making your content more visual, grabbing the attention of your connections. The other thing that many people can do is employee advocacy. Happy and fulfilled employees are the best spokespeople for a brand, so you’ll want them to talk about your brand where they can! Finally, make sure you are on LinkedIn! This channel allows you to meet more connections but also allows you the perfect space to talk about your company and why people should use it!

Influence Factory LIVE airs Wednesdays at 12pm CST. Register here!

You can also subscribe to previous and upcoming shows on the Social Jack website.

We hope to see you in our next Influence Factory!


In July, I was given the opportunity to be one of the 26 influencers featured in Nimble’s latest eBook – “The Ultimate Influencer Playbook of 2018.” Of course, I took that opportunity to be put in the spotlight (well, that’s not the only reason why!). While it is certainly cool to be featured in what is essentially an Influencer Marketing Guide, I’m ecstatic that I’m able to share my knowledge and words of wisdom with my fellow influencers as well as marketers trying to navigate the world of influencer marketing. This advice, including the other Influencer Marketing do’s and dont’s addressed throughout the book by my peers, will ensure that reader’s Influencer Marketing campaigns are super successful.

Let me be the first to say, this book is awesome…it is split into different sections that break Influencer Marketing down as much as possible. The first one showcases absolutely outstanding Influencer Marketing campaigns that were proven to bring in success. Looking at these campaigns has given me new ideas for my brand – as an influencer, there is always room for growth!

After seeing these unbelievably amazing campaigns, the second section follows up with six “Influencer Marketing Strategies and Tips.” You will find my contribution to Pro Tip #4: Put an Offer on the Table, on page 18!

In my opinion, I feel that I have the most to say about this next section—”10 Surprisingly Common Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs.” No one likes to fail (although, we all need to at some point in order to learn, right?) On page 25, I discuss how crucial it is to have a Plan B. Having a backup plan is one of the easiest ways to avoid disappointment and failure within your campaign.

The following portion of the book is about building your “Influencer Marketing Toolbox.” I brought up two of my go-to tools that I constantly nag my social media team to use: Epictions and HashTagify.me. Epictions is an extremely neat app that shows us which groups of influencers are engaging conversations about specific topics, and which types of media better suit their specific needs. HashTagify.me helps us identify trends in hashtags, which most of you probably know are the easiest and more efficient way to connect to other people interested in what you’re talking about online. You type in a word or two that describes a topic, and it will spit out trending hashtags related to those subjects – certainly one of the most useful tools for influencers and marketers.

While reading the “Closing Thoughts” of this book, I felt #inspired. Even though myself and the other 25 influencers mentioned have been killing it out there, we never stop growing! Influencer Marketing is still quite new, meaning there is a LOT more to learn for all of us.

You can download The Ultimate Influencer Playbook of 2018 here, thanks to our friends at Nimble.

Thanks for the opportunity, Nimble, to be featured alongside some of the best in the bizz. Until next time, see you online!


Influence Factory Brings Influencers Topical Industry News in an Exciting Way.

CHICAGO, February 12, 2018—Social Jack jump-started 2018 with a bang launching their new, free online webinar to podcast offering called The Influence Factory. The show airs live every Wednesday at noon CST as a webinar, but unavailable viewers can catch the episodes at a later time on YouTubeiTunesGoogle PlayStitcherSoundCloud and other channels.

Influence Factory, Where Leaders Assemble, features a wide variety of up-to-date segments compacted into a concise hour. Segments include an Influencer lesson of the week, a Special Guest interview with an Industry Business Influencer, updates on the latest industry news, and “Ask the Experts”. “Listeners” are encouraged to participate through polls, questions, and a Q&A segment and at the end of each episode the viewer with the most engagement receives a special prize. The goal of the webcast is for aspiring Influencers to engage and share new business ideas and learn from industry experts.

Each week Influence Factory features a different guest influencer to answer viewers’ questions pertaining to their area of expertise. Past guests include Google SEO Expert Joe Karns, Social Media Speaker Spencer X. Smith, Microsoft Storyteller Miri Rodriguez, “The Video Jedi” George B. Thomas, and Nimble CRM founder Jon Ferrara. Interested viewers can watch past episodes on Social Jack’s app, or on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOySYhhhgqoAtKpLXPWmxhQ

Viewers can also listen to past episodes on the go in podcast form on iTunesSoundCloud, and Google Play. The best way to catch The Social Jack Influence Factory is by subscribing to their weekly Webcast, and ensuring you don’t miss an episode, at www.myinfluencefactory.com

About Social Jack:

The Social Jack System is an Influencer Development platform that combines the power of people, social teaming and today’s social networks to create Business Influencers and develop a targeted loyal following and achieve influence in your world. Social Jack serves organizations, executives, professionals, top producers, speakers, and they even have Influencer Event offerings.

About Dean DeLisle:

As Founder and CEO of Forward Progress, Dean leads his core team to provide digital marketing solutions serving over 2,000 corporate clients for the past 15 years. In 2015 Dean created and released a Business Influencer Development Platform known as Social Jack™, and they have successfully trained over 100,000 professionals on Social Selling and B2B Influencer Marketing. Their curriculum and programs are used globally by Fortune 500 companies, Associations, Conferences and Universities to instill best practices related to the effective use of social networks.


 

How to Rock Your Personal Brand – The Start of Your Influence

If you have ever received a referral for a job or new business, you know how critical your online personal brand can be. People are only one click away from choosing you or moving on, and many times you will never even know. In our Social Jack Influencer Development Classes we teach the fundamentals to make that shift to be found and chosen first by your network. Let’s cover some of the core principals.

In our 8 step process, we start with a core story to build your personal brand. We first want to make sure we understand the desired outcome of our professional. Everything should drive to that destination or outcome.

Know or Define Your Authentic Self (Your Story)

We want to know the “what” our professional subject is going for and “why” being known is so important. We want this information as part of their story and to begin the creation of their persona and personal brand. Sometimes we have professionals and executives who are working on their career, so they may want to get to a certain level of career advancement or promotion. Some are looking for executive presence and thought leadership. Whatever goals you are wanting to accomplish, it is important to know this before you begin to work on yourself or with someone like us.

Knowing your story is critical, but it is perfectly okay to start with a draft and adjust along the way.  Some people wait years to even begin writing their story; the key is to pick a point and simply begin. Find trusted allies that will provide feedback, and even some subject matter, and experts to help you as well. Generally speaking, people are very willing to help. You may also have colleagues you work with that might have gone before you. Ask yourself this question: “What do you want to be known for?” Use your answer to craft a short narrative, typically 300-500 words. Catch yourself: you will want to tack things on as you go, which is fine, but make sure they are relevant. Stay targeted. Keep your focus.

Watch our latest class on establishing your personal brand HERE

When writing and building profiles and bios we look at the story as a whole, analyze the target audience, and determine which words people will use to find you on the internet and how you want to be found. Sometimes the keywords are not always what you would choose, however, they are what people would use to find you. Keywords and phrases are typically made up of 1 to 3 words and the ideal profile has 10 keyword phrases. If that seems like a lot right now, start small- itt is okay to start with 5 and add from there. Once you have your keywords, weave them into your story. You should do this AFTER you draft your story so you can flow with your ideas before worrying about keywords. If you need more help with keywords, we have a whole course you can reference in our Basic Social Jack Account.

Know Your Ideal Target

Think about your ideal audience: these are the people you want to attract and who you ideally want to do business with. You should be able to identify your ideal target at a very specific level: industry, title, type of company, geographic locations, size of organization, years in business, whatever matters most to you. Narrowing it down can be tough for many of us as we sometimes want to keep adding, however, the tighter you make your ideal target the better your story will be.  Plus, it will take less effort to generate new business or advance your career when your story is concrete and your target is narrow.

Even if you do not go into social selling, you should do this next step at least once a month for your own protection. First, Google your name and any variations. This could look like your name + your company name, your job title, etc. When you Google your name, you are looking for things that you are NOT aware of and making sure that all your Social Media profiles, websites and content are in alignment with your new brand (story). Look over at least the first two pages of your search results. The first things that should appear are any Social Network accounts, websites and high-traction videos. You can simply replace your old profiles with your newest profiles or update the information across platforms, but you absolutely want to delete any old, invalid profiles.

Next, set up Google Alerts with your name, brand names, company names, etc. With this free tool, you can have Google alert you at the frequency you desire (we recommend daily) any time your name pops up on the internet. I actually do this for my entire family! You will need a Gmail account to set this up, but that is also free.

Engage In Relevant Online Conversations

Anywhere online — blogs, video, pod casts, Social Media sites, online news articles, etc. — make sure you get your name and your brand attached to the content that’s most relevant to your story and that fits the keywords you want to be known for. This will take some practice. You can also engage (like, comment, share, retweet, etc.) with the content of other thought leaders. This will give you reach and visibility into their Social network, which can only be good for you. See the 7 likes and 3 comments on the post below. On average, this would reach thousands of views in news feeds as people keep engaging. Keep playing with this and have fun; it’s networking right from your smartphone.

It might seem like you have a long way to go, but remember you can start right now with these first few steps. It only takes a few hours to make basic changes and get out of the gate. If you don’t like where you’re starting from, you can make simple adjustments as you grow.  Just remember any time you make changes to one profile you should make the same changes across your other profiles, too. Also, remember to do this with others! Our goal is that you take what you have learned and someone else; you are never alone- nor should you be! If you need further resources, check out our Free Resource Center at Social Jack. You can access our Free Resource Center by signing up for a Basic Social Jack Account plus browse the worksheets and classes currently available.

We will see you (and your story) online!

We hope to see you in one of our next classes!

Join us for our next Online Flash Class: Personal Branding and Storytelling – How to Rock Your Digital Presence

Register HERE


The Key: Social Team Formation, Training, Coaching and Willingness to PLAY!

The Challenge: Help us fill our event in three weeks!

So many of you saw the previous Blog post on the Informs IMPAC 2017 show here in Chicago. Well, the INFORMS people came to us about three weeks before the show and said they needed a short, low-cost campaign to fill their event with paying event attendees at the Notre Dame Chicago Campus. We viewed this as the ultimate Social Influencer challenge: with a small budget and very little time, could we use our core network to make this event pop and possibly put some butts in seats? We took a close look at our network and talked briefly among our team; then we decided to take on the challenge and thought we would give it a shot with our Social Influencer Event System. Spoiler alert: it was a dramatic success! I have outlined the highlights of our steps below.

Strategy: Look at the impact and influence of the network 

We faced the challenge of two networks coming together. FinTech Analytics and Sports Analytics are two different groups, with two entirely different networks. Keep in mind we look at every event like a sporting event, so we assemble networks and sub-networks like “Social Teams”, where there are levels of talent and groupings based on each levels’ commitment to the organization and desire for it to succeed, i.e., corporate championship. So, our typical method is to run what we call our “Inside Out” analysis. It might be easiest to follow along with the diagram below:

Prep work: We make sure first and foremost that we connect all of our teams and brands to the teams associated with the event. We also score all Team Players on the diagram above, both professionals and brands, so we know who the strongest players are – and consequently the ones most likely to participate. As much as you’d like for everyone to participate, we find we mostly get a 50% participation rate; however, some groups surprise us with a higher level of play.

Get the Teams Ready for Play

1.     Core Team (Level One) – these were the Board Members. We were able to get agreement ahead of time for willingness to play. This is critical; without this buy-in, it does not work. So, a big shout out to the Board Members listed below who allowed us to start this machine rolling. A special shout out to Andrea Leiter who was our initial content and spark to get the troops assembled and have them agree to play with us.

They agreed to allow us to train them on how to play on social media and how to interact with our content. Our Social Jack™ Influencer Team Training purposely keeps it simple and easy for busy people to play the game with us and it’s proven to be highly effective. Board Members also agreed to connect us to the next level of the network, the Speaker Team.

2.     Speaker Team (Level Two) – The Speakers were all connected to the Board Members (Team One), so we worked to have them reach out and ask the Speakers to play with our content. We then also provide weekly online coaching sessions for all clients and subscribers so they have a place to go. Don’t forget to also include the Speakers’ brands as part of the game! On our Social Jack™ Platform, we also record all training and coaching sessions for review. We then reach out to all Speakers and invite them to participate. When we have more time, we offer our training and coaching program for Speakers; unfortunately, for this run we could not organize our training for all Speakers.

See Speakers List

3.     Sponsor Team (Level Three) – Sponsors typically are invested; however, many do not know how to play socially. We had the Board Members with the best relationships personally contact the Sponsors and ask them to participate; some even sent email blasts in addition to social posting and engagement. Most are typically invested as they too want the eyeballs on their brand — or they would not be Sponsors. We watched and helped the Sponsors boost their message as part of the process. Reciprocity is part of the success recipe here!

4.     Connected Influencer Team (Level Four) – This is our “secret sauce”: so, we find the Influencer Players in our network, depending on the type of event, audience, etc. Sometimes we have more and sometimes less. In this case we reached out to everyone — from media contacts related to sports and everyone we knew in FINTECH. We wound up with a team of about 35 people of which about 20 played nicely. There was a great variety of participation, ranging from emails to social media placement of banner ads to attendance. Too many to mention here, suffice it to say however that we could not have done it without these players in this process.

Time to Play

Once we have team connections and agreements in place, it’s really time to play! As soon as we had the board trained, we then mapped out our messaging with emails, social media and advertising. We had to move fast since we had a super short promotion window, with very little time for testing. We had to lead out with our best guestimates for the message and tweak on the fly as needed.

We created content calendars and sent those out to all the team players that were trained and those that had agreed to play with us online. As always, some jumped in right away and some needed a little nudge and still others did not show up. No-shows are a hard fact, but in this case, most showed up to play with us online and some even went the extra mile with sending extra emails and even posted their own supply of social media. The most important thing is for all team members to understand what and when you will be posting so they can interact with you, so the best bet is to have your content done in advance, let speakers and sponsors know when they will be featured and where, and then communicate like crazy on approach.

Ongoing Coaching Support

In our weekly Social Jack™ coaching sessions, we provide unlimited support for all clients and students. This means if they want to understand LinkedIn more, we teach that; if they want to play more on Twitter, we teach that. Whatever they need we are there to help them. This way they never feel alone in the game, and for many this is a new game for them. We understand that many of these people are new to this game and we want them to succeed just by being part of the event.

That Extra Reach

To continue this thought, think about if you have a speaker that only has 50 followers on Twitter, then you show them how to get another 20, then how to attach to their brand and other influencers in their world. You are now changing the game one person, one network at a time. We literally received many inquiries and orders just from this method alone.

In this case we had:

8 Board Members

7 Sponsors

13 Speakers

20 Connected Influencers

The total estimated “targeted” social reach ended up being over 75 million connections, and that is a very conservative estimate.

 

The Outcome: 85 attendees for a paid event within 20 days!

 

One More Thing

Always think of the “one more thing”: what is one more tweet, post, share or like that can be done and where. We went into LinkedIn Groups, Alumni Groups and other areas, and in the home stretch that also helped. So, remember when doing this, stick to the plan and — like you do at the gym — always go for one more thing!

There were many more things that we did behind the scenes as part of our process, but I hope this brings you ideas and thoughts of how you can bring more people to your events through Influencer Marketing. We are all Influencers and have a powerful network once it is activated, it’s just that some of us are new and just starting out. Remember that the largest Influencers started with just a few followers at some point and built up to what you now know. The cool thing is that it is never too late to start.

For many of you this seems way out there, it is new, it is growing, it is changing all the time. If you want to know more or want to get a walk-through of our system, I encourage you to visit our website or our Coaching and Training Platform.

Oh — one more thing, remember as you start your journey, you are never alone as long as you follow the Social Teaming methodology described earlier in this blog post. Please let us know how you do as you grow your brand and yourself as an influencer, we would love to feature you or maybe refer to you during one of our upcoming events. After all, our event clients are always looking for the next up-and-coming influencer!

We will see you online…. Influencing!


With all the hype of the newest features on LinkedIn — video, active status and other cool new features – that were released in the last few weeks, an old popular feature, one that was taken away with the last major release, now returns!

At the Social Jack™ Academy, we had a cool feature called “Network Diving;” this is the simple process of searching your connections’ networks. Well, this feature is now back, and better than ever because now it incorporates the new filtered search system.

We’ll illustrate how it works with an example: let’s say you are going to have a meeting with one of your connections and are going for named referrals, and you would like to have the option to filter ideal connections. With the previous release you would get a list, with no way to search like you used to. Fortunately, now this has changed back to the way it was, where when you click on someone’s connections, it now jumps you to the filtered search like it used to! This is an amazing switch. We caution here that there are a few exceptions, so read on.

You can search within the connections using all the filter options shown below.

The main exceptions here are the following:

1.     If the connection you are “Network Diving” on, i.e. exploring their connections, has their network access turned off, you will not be able to dive unless you have Sales Navigator.

2.     Those of you on Basic (Free) LinkedIn will be able to enjoy only a few selections in the search, then you will be blocked from seeing the rest unless you have Premium LinkedIn. But in my mind, this feature alone is the worth the price!

We are showing this account version chart provided from our friends at Integrated Alliances, thanks Mike O’Neil!

We hope you love this new feature and if you want to learn more of what we call “Power Moves”, please connect with us at our Social Jack™ website. If you are reading this before September 5th, then jump into our next Social Selling class at: https://socialjack.com/linkedin-complete-social-selling-course/ – this is our complete course with On Demand classes, Instructor-Led Coaching Sessions. You will learn more cool fun things like in this article.

Please let us know how this ‘old new’ feature works for you.

We will see you online Network Diving!


Sorry if it sounds like I am geeking out here, but read on!

Most of you know we handle a ton of conferences and provide Influencer Marketing services. When asked by INFORMS to participate in their conference, it reactivated my technical network, meaning that connections from my roots were brought forward. I have been in the financial arena since the early 80’s and I’ve been in or around analytics for most of my career; I’ve been a huge fan of sports all my life. So when I looked at the INFORMS conference and saw this network coming together I was tremendously excited.

Those of you that know me, you know I am all about the network. When you look at the speakers and topics it’s almost hard for me to pick a track. So we are splitting up and coming together on the LinkedIn Group afterwards to compare notes! Then you have the companies connected to the speakers, STATS – the best live sports data provider I know, can’t wait to meet Patrick Lucey, Ph. D., Director of Data Sciences. I will have a follow up interview blog after the conference. Liz Wanless, Ph. D., from Ball State University will talk about something near and dear to my heart, which is Customer Relationships and Sales Optimization, she will be sharing two revenue enhancement case studies. Russell Walker, Ph. D., from Northwestern will be talking Big Data related to Sports Management; this is changing our world and delivery of stats as we speak. Zach Binkley, Ph. D., Lewis University will be sharing sports performance communication, implementation and innovation; with all the data today, this is a massive undertaking.

From my FINTECH world I can’t wait to hear what Michael Rechenthin, Ph. D, from tastytrade has to say about Data Sciences and Collaboration, this is right in my wheelhouse of content. We also know that Machine Learning and Predictive models are hot and that topic will be covered by Justin Dickerson, Ph.D. – he will dig into Default, Fraud and Scoring which is a big piece of our financial world today. Joe DeCosmo, Chief Analytics Officer from Enova, will address Real Time Analytics. We are in such a “real time, on demand” world, and he will share what is trending and what the future holds.

Take a look the chart below, all speakers have a critical handle on what is hot and going on right now, so that is why it is tough to select a track!

IMPAC 2017 – INFORMS Midwest Practice of Analytics Conference

The only negative? The conference only has 100 seats at the current venue! However, you can get on a waiting list for the next conference and early notification for the next conference.

Registration and Waiting List link: http://connect.informs.org/chicago/meetings/impac2017

If you cannot make this conference please ask me what questions you want answered at the bottom of this post and I will do my best to get them addressed here or in the LinkedIn Groups

Also, check the new INFORMS Chicago Twitter account

To follow activity and update use Hashtag: #IMPAC2017

Location: University of Notre Dame, Chicago Campus – 224 S. Michigan Avenue (2nd Floor), Chicago IL 60604

We also want to acknowledge all sponsors that are supporting this event:

Social Jack and Forward Progress are proud to participate in this great event, we look forward to seeing you at the event or on the related social channels on the journey!


So you have been asked to be a guest on a podcast…Great! In the spirit of Influencer Marketing, we hope it receives plenty of traction and social reach. In our previous blog, How to be a Social Influencer, we spoke of being a “Thought Leader” and turning on the “Content Machine”. Fortunately for you, podcasting is a great way to do just that. People get to hear your voice, know your personality, gain insights and knowledge from you, and even better, you can attach the podcast to blogs like this and to social media. In fact, my previous blog references a podcast I was on — speaking about this very topic. Once you follow the steps I describe below, your podcast will also support your efforts in Personal Branding, described in another one of our blogs, Personal Branding – A Great Start to your Social Selling Journey!

With so many of you getting interviewed, we thought we should tell you what to do before, during and after the podcast. For Social Jack™, we have a promotion process for each and every production, whether it be a podcast or webcast, so the best thing to do is understand some critical information about the podcast you are working with. Examples include what is their promotion cycle, what is their timing, etc. We reference this in the following list of steps.

7 Steps to promote your podcast interview

1.    Promote on social media and other outlets 2 weeks before, if the podcast producers have a show schedule that references you. There is typically a website they have for the blog that will mention upcoming shows. You should sync the timing of this “xx” with any posting of your show. If they don’t have one, you can choose to promote a couple of weeks before, no further out than that. Once you’ve done this, you can tag and link back to that show, discussing how you are looking forward to the podcast.

2.    Notify your Team! Remember Social Teaming, it is the essence of teamwork: you’re not doing this this all alone! Tell them you are on this podcast, ask them to watch for social media, ask them to listen and provide feedback and get in the game with you! It’s collaborative, and it’s fun. You will also pick up more podcasts and speaking gigs this way too, it’s proven.

3.    Ahead of schedule, plan to blog about it, then you can have a link to the show from the blog post. This will provide good traffic between your site and theirs (and remember to use ample keywords). Also consider shooting a video talking about the upcoming podcast, or plan one for the release date of the podcast.

4.    Promote the podcast on social media the day of the show recording; some podcast producers promote as well, but others do not because it locks them into a production release schedule.

5.    Once the podcast is published, it’s time for you to go gonzo, tag your show and host, also remember all your channels. Once published, go ahead and cut lose with the blog or update the blog if done ahead of time.

6.    30 and 90 days after: (if relevant to your current business you can thank them and repost) – don’t forget use of #hashtags and @tags!

7.    Forever after…. Keep using the podcast in your content cycle as long as it is relevant!

Now, go do the next podcast interview and keep following this protocol to put yourself out there to support your influencerness (yes, I made up this word just for you!) ?

PRO TIP: Remember to always listen to your blog interview and think about what you could have done better or said better to improve your position as a thought leader. Also, listen to your competitors and colleague’s podcasts as well. You should always be looking for those nuggets to be better.

TOP RESOURCE: We recently did a full course on podcasting with top Podcaster Scott Kitun, from Technori, one of the top-rated media podcasts featured on WGN Radio, here in Chicago. Below is access to the slides; if you would like access to the full class we did, simply go to Social Jack™ and join for a 90-day free trial and you will have access to this class and over 200 others for that period — and weekly coaching, too. This is our gift to you for being part of our community.

To learn more about Podcasting, check out Podcasting 101 Marketing on SlideShare

In closing, let us know when your podcast airs and the team at Social Jack™ will gladly listen and promote your efforts. Remember, we are on your Social Team and we are all in this together!

See you online!


So, @Social Media Today had a great article titled 12 Reasons why Your Business Should be Utilizing Employee Advocacy, with a great Infographic from @LinkedIn. This was fantastic for me — and timely – because I had some talks lined up on Employee Advocacy and Social Teaming. I’d like to highlight the numbers I think are the most relevant here.

On Average, a company’s employees have 10X as many connections as the company has followers. 10 Times? Yes — and this is proven. In many of our Social Selling and Social Culture programs, we know for a fact that the average employee has 240 connections, and with their two degrees of connections, their social reach hits about 3.8 million connections. Now, to be sure, they won’t reach all those connections, and they’ll need a level of frequency to establish success, however their potential of reach to the company is far greater. The company page needs to rely on followers and there are only two ways to get followers: from existing followers (like employees) engaging, or from advertising. On average, the employee page has only 3% of the potential reach of the employees, and that is best case from our experience.

Every two employee shares from the company page on @LinkedIn result in a company page view, every six shares results in a Company Page follower! Wow, that is staggering, that is all it takes? Well, almost. We need the participation of those employees. How does that happen, how is that orchestrated?

Let me give you a real-life example from one of our clients, American Family Insurance. While at a recent conference, I was able to listen to long-time associate @TomBuchheim, who led the charge at American Family for their Employee Advocacy Program. I have always known they were on it, and proud to say I have been there since the early days of social, and frankly their approach was brilliant. In fact, it was very synergistic to our Social Teaming methodology for sales and culture development.

He mentioned how they formed teams of champions that would act as advocates for the brand and be willing to share content provided by the company to their LinkedIn pages. They started with a small group, then they continued to grow the teams. They created rewards and recognition for their efforts and it bonded the team and humanized the brand. They are even now tracking the success of this program to new business. They had so much success that it became the “in thing”, to a point where people are lining up to be on the next selection. “Pick me!” is how ! Imagine that.

So you see, these are simple metrics which prove the value of employee advocacy. Tom’s story at American Family Insurance is evidence and it continues to grow. We are excited because all of our programs at @Social Jack, Sales, Career, Recruiting and Culture have Social Teaming at the core. In fact here is our definition below, see how it resonates to the story above.

 

Social Team Definition

A group of professionals who have complimentary skills (1) driving to a common objective, goal or destination for which they (2) hold themselves mutually accountable for collective performance. They stay constant on their journey with the (3) purpose of building stronger relationships, trust and always think of other team members with genuine reciprocity. A Social Team (4) utilizes online social networks and the power of their targeted connections, within their sphere of influence, to (5) enhance the team’s relationships, reach, performance and success in reaching their common destination.

If you would like to read more, check out our blog post on Social Teaming:

Social Teaming – It's All About Who You Know.

Here is a snapshot and link to the revolutionary infographic by LinkedIn

So whether you are in the middle of this and working to figure it out, ask us about Social Teaming to energize this effort. If you’re not sure if management will approve it, show these numbers and this great infographic by LinkedIn to your boss. Think of it as “it is time or get left behind”, because it’s just too easy and it promotes culture development at the same time. What are you waiting for?

We hope to see you and your employees online and working together for a stronger brand!